The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is a famous grimoire title, but it does not identify one unchanged object. A short Stuttgart item from 1849, a much larger German edition, and later English-language copies show a publication history worth reading in its own right. This room follows dated witnesses and separates their title-page claims from what catalogues and scans establish.
Four editions in the collection
How the printed books differ
The 1849 German title claims fidelity to an old manuscript. That language shows how the publisher presented the book; it is not independent proof of an ancient source. The Bavarian State Library catalogues a Scheible item dated 1849. Its much longer 1854 successor demonstrates that every passage and plate under this title did not belong to one original edition.
The University of Michigan’s 1880 English copy and the Library of Congress’s 1910 Chicago edition are later print witnesses with their own dates, lengths, wording, and plates. The surviving records document those editions without establishing the books’ reported effects.
Core edition records
- Bavarian State Library copy of Scheible’s 1849 German printing, via Google Books ↗The catalog gives the Stuttgart publisher, year, 46-page length, and series position. The old-manuscript claim is on the historical title, not independently verified.
- Bavarian State Library copy of the enlarged 1854 German edition, via Google Books ↗The catalog describes a 400-page edition with 23 plates and an important appendix. Its length differs sharply from the 1849 item.
- University of Michigan copy of the 1880 English edition, via Google Books ↗The catalog identifies an English text, a “word for word” translation claim, and a 192-page volume.
- Library of Congress, de Laurence, Scott & Co. 1910 edition ↗A 190-page Chicago edition with a digitized 202-image sequence. The Library marks this book public domain and free to reuse.
- Owen Davies, “The dissemination of magical knowledge,” in Beyond the Witch Trials ↗Scholarly study of Scheible’s print history, variant forms, Pennsylvania circulation, and the 1880 English translation.
The linked Library of Congress record marks its 1910 volume public domain.